Developing relationships

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Just something to think about today, I think this will be the start of my presentation in a couple of weeks.  I'm discussing how to use technology in, and for the environment in elementary school.  I think it's all about relationships, what do you think?

Comm-unity

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For +COETAIL most of my community involvement has been focused on #enviroed.  Since I'm merging the tech and environment.  We talk every Thursday, which is pretty amazing, well Thursday for me Wednesday night for everyone else.  Here is one of my favourite chats , mainly because it focuses specifically on tech and 21st century skills in environmental education.

As a group we explore what each other are doing, ask each other questions to get specifics, I've worked with two other teachers on their specific research project, and have asked a couple of teachers to work with me on my coetail project. 

I've been trying to merge these two for awhile

+Nicki Hambleton has helped me out a ton too. We talk often in person. We bounce ideas off each other with pizza and wine (even if we shouldn't always be eating it).  It's great for us (well me definitely) to be able to see reactions and just check in on and get checked in on.  This personally has been one of the most valuable tools for me, not that Nicki is a tool.  But she has directed me towards other people like Kerri-Lee and Dave, and has directed me towards Cognitive Coaching where I met up with other coetailers as well.  

Mostly I feel like I've moved beyond just messing around, I've built part of my community (especially with #enviroed).  Connectivism is a real thing in my life.  I'm building on my connections, sand still reaching out for others.  

It's been a great journey so far, and I'm looking forward to even more in the last month.

Hybrid Minds

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This week, well the last couple of weeks, have been looking at Richard Louv's idea of Hybrid Minds. Technology is something we have always been working on, and I imagine always will, the natural world, the world we are connected to (without wireless) is always here, and hopefully always will be.  How can we pay attention to both? How can we develop both sustainably? Where do we go from here?

Lots of questions as I started reading these past couple of weeks, and while nothing has been explicitly answered, I feel my original thoughts are being reaffirmed. 

My project with getting the students outside and documenting their spots has taken a smallish turn.  Although they haven't been publishing their thoughts or feelings so much, they have displayed a different attitude towards being outdoors. 

Earlier in the year it was difficult to get them to put the ipads down, they wanted to keep holding on to them, checking out youtube videos, now they want to relax outside.  They've been putting the ipads down, and just laying down, looking at their spots and just being in nature. 

We have to find some way to mix the two of these realities though, and as I continue reading and working with our students, this is the goal.

Always Learning

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Reading George Couros' blog today about being Learning Savvy. In it he was talking about being tech savvy, and how he isn't always comfortable with the term.

As an EdTech coach, people definitely see me as someone who has technology skills (even though I don't necessarily see myself that way). Like George, I want to be more learning savvy.

Part of my action towards this is working on the Cognitive coaching workshops.  I want to be more focused on how we approach learning, with a tech and environmental ed perspective, but the goal is the same, what is best for students' learning.

Through my project on community, we have just finished our stories, and some of our blog entries.  We've talked about our favourite places and people in hopes that we can connect with incoming students, to make their transitions a little easier. It's not really about the tools we used, it's about what we learned about ourselves, our favourite spots, and how we can improve our community.

Thinking about it

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For +COETAIL I am well into the process of collecting evidence and working with students to share spaces.  I'm not sure how successful it will be but the process is enlightening for sure.

With students these past two weeks (the ones who aren't working on my Coetail project) we are exploring digital citizenship, with the idea that it can shape the future of who we are. 

Spencer Harrison and I used to work together, at the time I wasn't as aware of the idea of personal brand.  I was very conscious of displaying the image I wanted to show with the intention of challenge other people's viewpoints. Spencer was one of the first people to tell me, my image or brand could be shaped without shaping me. 

What this means for digital citizenship is that we aren't always who we appear to be online.  We all need to understand that a google search or looking at someone's facebook, linkedin profile or whatever is not who that person really is.  We can create our identity. 

Since we are creating our identity, we should make sure it's the best version of ourselves, and then try to live up to it. Our digital citizenship classes go into who do we want to be (as in what kind of person) and then how do we take action to be recognised as that type of person, what do they do. 

The last two weeks have been pretty interesting to see what versions of themselves each students wants to present.  They are thinking about their future, about who they want to be online, and how they can achieve this reality. 

Stopping consumerism in the Classroom

http://savedbythe-bellhooks.tumblr.com/

Well this Saved by the Bell Hooks tumblr site has me pretty intrigued. I wonder about this all the time, especially regarding tech.

So many teachers (it seems like anyway) are focused on what apps to use for learning, and so many of these apps (it seems like) are about consumerism, or button clicking or "gamification" that involves little learning.  I fully want students to create and connect, not just consume. I want them to create for freedom, and to help them become full participants in our society. 

So, I need to really think about how I'm modelling these traits in my own learning journey.  I think this ties nicely into environmental education too, because most people know about climate change but not many people are taking meaningful action (myself included most of the time) to become the change. I'll be focusing on this through our community building activities online this week.

Working on Community

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I was reading this George Couros blog about smiling the other day about the importance of smiling and being aware of everyone in the learning community. I often think about who I am including when I go about my day, and who I may be excluding.  I know that at times I focus solely on the students, and miss out on support staff and families.  So this past week my goal was to engage them all with a smile.

Smiling made a bigger difference than I thought.  Not only were people more interested in what I was doing, or what I had to say, but I actually felt better about my day too.